April 14, 2011
pambazuka.org

The Lies Behind the West's War on Libya

by Jean-Paul Pougala

It was Gaddafi's Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times - connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching.

. . . a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi's Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come . . .

The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belong to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation - the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.

The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatisation like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17 December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.

It is increasingly obvious that after Libya, the western coalition will go after Algeria, because apart from its huge energy resources, the country has cash reserves of around € 150 billion. This is what lures the countries that are bombing Libya and they all have one thing in common - they are practically bankrupt. The USA alone, has a staggering debt of $US14,000 billion, France, Great Britain and Italy each have a US$2,000 billion public deficit compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 African countries combined. . . .

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Eric Margolis, "Col. Khadaffi's Secret Tunnels of Death," Toronto Sun, December 8, 1997

Enver Masud, "Pan Am 103: Lockerbie Verdict 'Astonishing'," The Wisdom Fund, February 6, 2001

Enver Masud, "Libya Oil Grab Disguised As Humanitarian Assistance," The Wisdom Fund, March 8, 2011

"News release: Fears grow over possible depleted uranium use in Libya," uwnetwork, March 31, 2011

"Libya: A 'Socialist Paradise' Under Colonial Attack," The Wisdom Fund, April 1, 2011

[Contrary to western propaganda allegations, which the chronological and geographical proximity of events in Tunisia and Egypt may have appeared to validate, the Libyan people did not rise up against the Gaddafi regime. Gaddafi still enjoys popular legitimacy in Tripolitania and in Fezzan, regions where the Colonel has distributed arms to the population to resist against the advancement of both Cyrenaica insurgents and foreign powers.

Contrary to western propaganda allegations, which some of the incendiary declarations by the 'the brother leader' himself may even have corroborated, Gaddafi has never bombed his civilian population. He has used military force against putschists without worrying about the consequences for the civilian population. This distinction makes no difference to the victims but in international law it separates war crimes from crimes of humanity.

Finally, contrary to western propaganda allegations and despite Bernard Henry-Levy's farcical revolutionary romanticism, the revolt of Cyrenaica was anything but spontaneous. It was prepared by the DGSE, MI6 and the CIA. The French put the National Transitional Council together by drawing on the information and contacts of Massoud El- Mesmari, ex-companion and confident of Gaddafi who defected in November 2010 and was given asylum in Paris. With the aim of reestablishing the monarchy, the British reactivated the network of Prince Mohamed el-Senoussi, pretender to the throne of the United Kingdom of Libya, currently exiled in London, and distributed the red, black and green flag brandishing a star and crescent. The United States seized military and economic control by repatriating Libyan exiles from Washington and placing them in key ministerial and military positions within the National Transitional Council.--Thierry Meyssan, "Libya and the new US strategic doctrine," voltairenet.org, April 21, 2011

[Libya's Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.

The US, the other G-8 countries, the World Bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before the US sent troops into Iraq.--John Perkins, "Libya: It's Not About Oil, It's About Currency and Loans," informationclearinghouse.info, April 26, 2011]

[Left out of today's Libyan debate is any consideration of building on the African Union's proposal for a ceasefire and a transition to democracy with Gaddafi on the sidelines. Gaddafi's embattled regime agreed to those terms, but the plan was spurned by anti-Gaddafi rebels and doesn't even rate a mention when the "options" are listed in the Big Media.--Robert Parry, "Trying 'Shock and Awe' in Libya," consortiumnews.info, April 27, 2011]

Peter Dale Scott, "Libya and the decline of the petrodollar system," atimes.com, May 6, 2011

Jack Shenker, "Nato units left 61 African migrants to die of hunger and thirst," Guardian, May 8, 2011

Peter Custers, "Fears of Depleted Uranium Use in Libya," Inter Press Service, June 2, 2011

Russia Today, June 9, 2011

[This week the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said she was "deeply concerned" by reports Gaddafi's troops were engaged in widespread rape as a weapon of war.

. . . Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International's Libya expert, told me that Amnesty researchers in Libya had found no evidence of such a policy.--Patrick Cockburn, "Those Libyan Atrocities: Do They Really Stand Up," counterpunch.org, June 20, 2011]

Eugene Robinson, "Obama's novel definition of 'hostilities'," washingtonpost.com, June 20, 2011

[The mission was originally justified as necessary to save lives, even though there was no evidence of impending massacres anywhere, including in Benghazi. In fact, Muammar Qaddafi's forces committed no large killings in any of the cities that they retook, and his oft-cited florid rhetoric was directed against guerrilla fighters, not civilians.--Doug Bandow, "U.S. Gears Up for War Number Six," nationalinterest.org, June 20, 2011]

Patrick Cockburn, "Amnesty questions claim that Gaddafi ordered rape as weapon of war," Independent, June 24, 2011

[Women from in and around Gadhafi's stronghold of Tripoli have been traveling south to a training facility in Bani Walid to practice with weapons, a common sight in a country where young girls receive military training in schools.--David McKenzie, "Libya's Gadhafi calls for volunteers, women answer," CNN, June 30, 2011]

"Huge Rally In Tripoli As Gaddafi Warns Europe," Sky News, July 2, 2011

[Hillary Clinton and President Sarkozy might loath to admit it, but the desire to turn back the clock on women rights in Libya constitutes one of the chief goals for NATO Rebels on the Transitional Council.--Susan Lindauer, "Why Western Woman Must Support Gaddafi," mathaba.net, July 29, 2011]

[Genocide... Gaddafi is "bombing his own people"... Save Benghazi... African Mercenaries... Viagra-fueled Mass Rape... Responsibility to Protect... Gaddafi-the Demon... Freedom Fighters-the Angels... Victory for the Libyan People... Defeat for "the Left"--Maximilian C. Forte, "The Top Ten Myths in the War Against Libya," counterpunch.org, August 31, 2011]

Diana Johnstone, "Gaddafi's Libya as Demon: Lockerbie and the Belgian Nurses," counterpunch.org, August 31, 2011

"Yes, I'm saying that it's all lies," gagnauga.is, September 1, 2011

[ . . . he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control. . . .

"Contrary to what is being reported in the press, from what I heard and observed, more than 90 percent of the Libyan people love Gaddafi," Fauntroy said.--Valencia Mohammed, "Walter Fauntroy, Feared Dead in Libya, Returns Home - Guess Who He Saw Doing the Killing: It wasn't the Libyans," afro.com, September 7, 2011]

[. . . the proverbial dog not barking - even as Libya's secret intelligence files have been exposed to the eyes of Western journalists - is the absence of any incriminating evidence regarding Libya's role in the Lockerbie case. Earlier interrogations of Libya's ex-intelligence chief Moussa Koussa by Scottish authorities also apparently came up empty, as he was allowed to leave London for Qatar.--Robert Parry, "On Libya, Now They Tell Us," consortiumnews.com, September 15, 2011]

[ . . . the war dead registered from both sides in each area so far are mostly in the hundreds, not the thousands.--Rod Nordland, "Libya Counts More Martyrs Than Bodies," nytimes.com, September 16, 2011]

"Libya hedges mass grave claim," cnn.com, September 26, 2011

[And then there's the issue of mass graves. Tripoli security officials passed out surgical masks and brought a forensics expert Wednesday on a bus tour for journalists to one of the supposed gravesites in Tripoli. The site consisted of long ditches in a normal cemetery. The trenches were empty, with not a corpse in sight and no sign that any had ever been there.--Hannah Allam, "Six weeks after Gadhafi's fall, Libya's rebels can't get their story straight," mcclatchydc.com, October 6, 2011]

"In Memory of the late Col. Muammar Gaddafi," abovetopsecret.com, October 21, 2011

[The National Transitional Council puts the losses at 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded.--Seumas Milne, "If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure," Guardian, October 26, 2011]

[A young French film-maker, Julien Teil, has filmed a remarkable interview in which the secretary general of the Libyan League for Human Rights, Slimane Bouchuiguir, candidly admits that he had "no proof" of the allegations he made before the U.N. Human Rights Commission which led to immediate expulsion of the official Libyan representative and from there to U.N. Resolutions authorizing what turned into the NATO war of regime change. Indeed, no proof has ever been produced of the "bombing of Libyan civilians" denounced by Al Jazeera, the television channel financed by the Emir of Qatar, who has emerged with a large share of Libyan oil business from the "liberation war" in which Qatar participated.--Diana Johnstone, "As the 'Humanitarian Warriors' Gloat... Here's the Key Question in the Libyan War," Guardian, October 26, 2011]

[According to more than a few observers, Gadhafi's plan to quit selling Libyan oil in U.S. dollars - demanding payment instead in gold-backed "dinars" (a single African currency made from gold) - was the real cause. The regime, sitting on massive amounts of gold, estimated at close to 150 tons, was also pushing other African and Middle Eastern governments to follow suit..--Alex Newman, "Gadhafi's Gold-money Plan Would Have Devastated Dollar," thenewamerican.com, November 11, 2011]

"The Libyan War, brought to you by Bernard-Henri Levy," france24.com, June 6, 2012

Ramzy Baroud, "Bernard-Henri Levy and the destruction of Libya," atimes.com, November 20, 2013

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro and Kelly Riddell, "Secret tapes undermine Hillary Clinton on Libyan war: Joint Chiefs, key lawmaker held own talks with Moammar Gadhafi regime," washingtontimes.com, January 28, 2015

[Mr. Levy went to Benghazi, camera in tow, when Gaddafi was about to squash a growing rebellion with mass killing at a time when Libya was already parceled out to tribes and warlords out of Tripoli's grip. He sat down the first loudmouth he crossed paths with at the newly established Transitional Counsel, a guy named Mansour Saif al-Nasr, stood close to him to be on frame on camera and dialed president Nicolas Sarkozy, famous for wearing compensated shoes. A week later this traveling circus was at the Elysee Palace on Mr. Levy's own dime and in a month, after Sarkozy had convinced David Cameron and Barack Obama to join forces, French jets were pounding Gaddafi's troops. Three months later Gaddafi was dead.--Jacques Hyzagi, "Why Does Everyone Hate Bernard-Henri Levy?," observer.com, May 1, 2015]

[the great fear reported is that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.--Brad Hoff, "Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention," foreignpolicyjournal.com, January 6, 2016]

ADAM ELIYAHU BERKOWITZ"THE BENGHAZI-ELIE WIESEL CONNECTION HILLARY CLINTON WANTS TO HIDE," israel365news.com, July 8, 2016

[Earlier this month, a select committee of British parliamentarians released a report which condemned the U.K. government under David Cameron for its role in the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya. The report makes plain that the principal basis on which the intervention was predicated – that then-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was on the verge of committing a wholesale slaughter of the rebel stronghold Benghazi – was a lie propagated by Western and Gulf State media outlets.--James W Carden, "How Libyan 'Regime Change' Lies Echo in Syria," consortiumnews.com, September 25, 2016]

TRANSCRIPT: So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it's the chronological description of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee and migrant crisis.--"Julian Assange Speaks About Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Election and the Litany of Charges Against Him," truthdig.com, November 5, 2016

[The French president, who took the lead among Europeans in the military campaign against Gaddafi, was eager to compensate for diplomatic blunders in Tunisia and Egypt and most likely angry about an arms deal with Gaddafi that went awry. Sarkozy, it now appears, was eager to shift the narrative to put himself at the forefront of a pro-democracy, anti-Gaddafi intervention.--Joe Penney, "WHY DID THE U.S. AND ITS ALLIES BOMB LIBYA? CORRUPTION CASE AGAINST SARKOZY SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON OUSTING OF GADDAFI," theintercept.com, April 28, 2018]

[Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry into deaths that occurred there in 1996, an incident which some have referred to as the Abu Salim prison massacre. Human Rights Watch believes that 1,270 prisoners were killed. However, its estimate is mostly based on the account of a single former inmate.

. . . On 25 September 2011 the National Transitional Council (NTC) announced that a mass grave had been discovered outside the prison.

. . . However, investigators from CNN and other organizations could find no evidence of mass graves at the supposed site - only some animal bones.--"Abu Salim prison," wikipedia.org]